I am leading/giving a presentation next week at #Podstock15 called "Wearables-AKA who DOESNT want a light up tiara". I am basing it off an Arduino (https://www.arduino.cc/ ) type microcontroller called Gemma found at Adafruit. I wanted to learn about Arduino and how I could incorporate it into Physics classroom, in particular when we do circuits. After finding Gemma & Flora and NeoPixels at the Adafruit website, and looking through their TONS of projects and tutorials, I have some good ideas. They aren't just LED's , they are PROGRAMMABLE. Thanks to a large community, you don't HAVE to program from scratch, you can use an existing one. So I had to finally start building stuff this week. I went through the Adafruit Learning System and found some projects that used Gemma & Neopixels and duplicated them. I only tweaked some of the code (number of pixels, colors produced, data pin). I did have to do some soldering (didn't burn myself once - though in the middle of the night or when I am at the gym my mind goes "did I unplug the soldering iron?") You can also add sensors. One project uses a light sensor (between my fingers) to trigger the NeoPixels--covered means off, uncovered means on. Speaking of sensors, I wanted to make the NeoPixels change by reacting to sound. A microphone is the sensor. I had to use the Flora microcontroller (at least that is what the project called for - maybe it can be ported to the Gemma - or maybe it needs the more powerful Flora). (There is a similar project to this, "light up drums" ,that makes me want to build a volume meter for the band teacher using a strip of 30 LED's in order for the band to have a visual on how loud they should be playing) I made a second Flora project that uses an accelerometer to make the NeoPixels change. These components are TINY and battery operated. Hence "wearable". They are very easy to incorporate into clothes or school projects. Components, some wire, a little duct tape, or hot glue, or conductive thread is all you need.
I was hoping to use codebender to do the programming from chromebook via the cloud because in the Spring they said you could. I found out that I can program an Arduino this way. But I cannot program the Gemma this way. They are working on that compatibility/programming issue. For now you have to download the Arduino IDE and program from your computer. I need to finalize some ideas for the presentation. After that, I need to look at adding the basics to our circuits unit, and see if students want to go beyond basics. I don't mean it to be a coding unit, but hopefully all will gain something from the exposure to code, and some will want to go beyond basics. There are tons of awesome projects and what teenager doesn't want to bling out their clothes.
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Education is first about relationships, for our students as well as us teachers. Well maybe food is actually first, so I found “Foods on First” on Arch St. near 15th. Great little diner. Had 3 breakfasts there. I didn’t eat lunch (i did go to Rosa's Wednesday), or I might have gone back for lunch. Reading Market at lunch time is a “little” crowded. I go to ISTE by myself. No one else from District, not even sure if anyone from neighboring Districts were there. There are many people who do this from around the nation. Do we need a "loners" meetup? I went to #ISTE2015 in Philly to meet up with “old’ friends, meet some twitter friends face to face, and find some new friends. I didnt go to learn about the latest, greatest tool or trend (pedagogy first!). I already have a “to learn” list for this summer and, honestly, none of it was at ISTE. Yes some version, or generality was there (what isn’t there????), but my list is pretty specific what I need to do. It started right away Friday night when I met up with 3 old friends who had a fourth, new to me educator with them. Then on Saturday before #HackEd15 even started (an edcamp, unconference) connected with another high school math teacher. #HackEd15 had great conversations and even more connections to new friends and meetups with current ones. Sunday night after the keynote party, just wandering the halls with 2 friends, we ran into 5 soon to be new friends who had just gotten in from New Orleans...our dinner group just grew to 8. Good food, good convos at Maggiano’s. Funny part about that is my one friend kept running into three of the New Orleans group during following days. Connections continued Monday thru Wednesday. In Bloggers Cafe, in sessions (i did got to a couple), met the friend of a new friend, introduce my new friends to my old friends…..the vast web of Educational Interconnectedness. I don’t know everything, but I know someone who knows…. I didn't get to meet everyone in my PLN f2f, I didn't catch up with everybody I wanted to, I didn’t get to spend as much time with my old friends (I think they ditched me). I DID spend time meeting some new ones and having good conversations in the "limited" time we had (how 5 days can be limited....well when there are 20,000 people there....) But it is not about "didn't', it is more about what I DID get, how I am better today than yesterday. Hope the conversations continue and our web of interconnectedness grows and overtakes the world. But some questions arise…. - People talk about “if you are not connected, you are becoming irrelevant” & “teachers need to be connected to get their students connected” What percent of teachers are connected? What percent of ISTE attendees are connected? How many start a connection at ISTE then drop when they get back home? Do we really need to be connected to be an effective teacher? Does that only depend on your definition of effective? Do we have too many definitions of what school should be doing and what being effective means? Why is it my job to help students make connections (“i teach English/Science/…..) ? -What percentage of Districts are represented at ISTE? Should that be 100%? Should every Tech Director be required to attend ISTE? How many people are “sent” to ISTE and come away with nothing and don’t change anything? |
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